This invention relates to a headrest for a motor vehicle seat and more particularly to an improved composite latch clip for attaching the headrest and a escutcheon to the vehicle seat.
The U. S. Pat. No. 3,904,241 issued Sept. 9, 1975 to Makinen entitled Vehicle Headrest is representative of prior art arrangements to adjustably attach a support bar of a headrest and an escutcheon to a vehicle back seat. An example of another prior art vehicle seat headrests is shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 of the drawings wherein the existing conventional members are indicated by primed numbers. FIG. 1 shows the upper portion of a vehicle seat back assembly generally indicated at 10'. The headrest commonly includes a padded headrest assembly 12' having a rectangular sectioned aluminum support post 14' extending downwardly from the cushion into seat back frame 16' where it is engaged in a mounting bracket 18'. A plastic escutcheon 19' has a collar 20' integral with a sleeve portion 21' partially surrounding the support bar and formed with a resilient finger 22' and a locking abutment 23' for engagement in one of a series of openings 24' in mounting bracket rear wall 25' to vertically position the escutcheon collar 20' on the seatback trim (not shown). The escutcheon collar 20' conceals opening 26' in the seat back trim which receives the support bar 14'.
Prior art FIGS. 1 and 2 disclose a generally elongate sheet steel leaf spring locking member 27' secured adjacent to its longitudinal center to mounting bracket front wall 28' by a rivet 29' extending mounting through hole 30'. The leaf spring locking member 27' is formed with a transversely extending V-shaped channel adjacent its upper and lower ends defining respective upper 31' and lower 32' catches. As seen in prior art FIG. 2 the upper catch 31' is adapted to project into a vertically aligned upper window 34' in the bracket front wall 28' while the lower catch 32' is adapted to project into a vertically aligned lower window 36' in wall 28'. During adjustment of the positions of the headrest 12, the upper 30' and lower 32' catches are resiliently deflected outwardly while riding on the opposed cam surface of the post. The catches 31' and 32' move into and out of engagement with a locking recess in the post such as shown at 70 in FIG. 5 of the drawings.
The steel catches 31' and 32' are unsatisfactory in that they have a tendency to scratch or mark the softer aluminum support bar. Thus, after adjusting the headrest bar up and down a number of times, the steel catches eventually cut into or score the bar opposed flat cam surface causing a metal to metal scraping noise while increasing operator effort in raising and lowering the bar to adjust the headrest 12'.